Hi, i'm having trouble reading multiple excel files in a loop and performing simple calculation of the mean for a specific column

%Here is my code - I have three excel files named bec 1, bec 2, bec 3 saved to folder 'loop'. I want to calculate the mean of column 1(named 'potato') ,sheet1 in each file in a loop. I don't really need to store the data in an array but if anyone can help make this code work I would be very appreciative :).

cd('C:\Users\rebec\Desktop\loop')
numfiles=3

data=[];

for fileidx = 1:numfiles

filedata = readmatrix(sprintf('bec %d.xlsx',fileidx));

if fileidx == 1

data = zeros(size(filedata, 1), numfiles);

end
data(:, fileidx) = filedata.potato;
end

numfiles =

3

Dot indexing is not supported for variables of this type

Answer 1

[Bhaskar R]

readtable is better than readmatrix here

folder_path = 'C:\Users\rebec\Desktop\loop';    % your path
num_files = 3;  % number of excel files
data_mean = zeros(1, num_files);    % initialize mean data with 0s
for ii =1:num_files
    % form file name
    file_name = fulfile(folder_path, sprintf('bec %d.xlsx',ii));
    % read data from file
    T = readtable(file_name, 'sheet', 'Sheet1');
    % calculate mean and assign to data_mean
    data_mean(ii) = mean(T.potato);
end

[rebecca wise]

Thank you Bhaskar R. :) It worked and thank you so much for answering so quickly! Much appreciated X